The Sixth Line of Defense

by Shiva Winters

  * * *

  "Those.. two little girls.." Lt. Konas whispered to her as the shuttle was prepped for launch as the elevator system carried it to one of the short catapults that would allow them to overcome the moon's gravity more easily. Shiva could easily guess that someone had been talking to her about something because she seemed just a touched more nervous than she had been before, but that was fine with Shiva because if nothing else the Lieutenant wouldn't do anything stupid until Shiva was well and truly out of range of her. "They looked a lot like you.." Even though it was clear that she was really just trying to make conversation, Shiva decided that they still had a long flight ahead of them and it wouldn't hurt to give her a little insight for the sake of a quiet flight.

  "My daughters." Shiva whispered as she settled back in the co-pilots seat. With the engines rumbling in the background the catapult activated without the need of a spoken countdown and they were thrown back into their seats as they were given just enough momentum to carry them slowly into lunar orbit. "An attempt to perfect some of my flaws, I suppose." She added as the pressure let off.

  "You call them your daughters, but.." She didn't feel quite comfortable enough to comment on Shiva's good-bye scene or questioning the oddities that it had contained.

  "We don't have parents, we don't have grandparents, and we really don't have any siblings.. we are individuals without any real family connections. All we really have in common with any other living being are similar model numbers. Maybe it's a compulsion so embedded in human DNA that not even the ones who made us couldn't get rid of it, or maybe it is simply because it made us feel like we were more than just man-made objects, but long ago we started calling ourselves a family for whatever the reason.." Shiva whispered as she was aware of being watched as Lt. Konas programmed the auto-pilot sequence through the controls from the course Shiva had plotted hours earlier in Alex's office. It didn't register any errors, and soon enough they were settling into a long slow course around the far side of the moon that would eventually lead them to Earth. "In terms of strict genetics, they would be considered closer to clones having about 70% of our genetic material being exactly the same and 20% of the remainder in common with each other. It would take a lot more research to give you accurate numbers and to find out who the father or father's might have been, if there was one. Science and philosophy are fine things for the right times, but the simple fact is that I have more in common with those two little girls than any other living thing than I know of, so yes, I call them my daughters. They call me their mother and all our more distant 'relatives' call us the triplets."

  "I am sorry if I am bothering you.." She murmured nervously.

  "I would have told you if you were." Shiva mumbled back already starting to feel tired as the effects of gravity started to ebb away. "I'll probably fall asleep for most of the flight.. if you would.. avoid grabbing me unless that is what it takes to wake me up as we approach our entry window through Earth's atmosphere."

  "Um, yes.. Kali thought I should know some things.." She agreed with a gentle smile.

  "Well no one wants to see you get hurt, least of all me." Shiva whispered back as her eyes got too heavy to watch the shifting gray landscape shifting below and and ahead of them any longer. "If they suspect anything.. don't worry about me.. tell them.." Her words were interrupted by a yawn that forced its' way to the surface. ".. that I was captured by Lunar security, sedated and put aboard your ship. Only, I woke up early.."

  "You make it sound like you aren't going the whole way with me.." She commented softly.

  "I'm not.. anyways it probably won't come up, you'll or those above you in the chain of command will be pretty busy not long after you arrive." Shiva murmured to her just before her last conscious thoughts drifted away and she was falling into mildly troubled dreams.

  "Shiva.." The touch on the shoulder was brief and gentle and the fingers retreated long before instinct started to stir up within her. It was almost possible for her to feel the returning effects of gravity at the edges of her senses. Shiva's eyes flicked open to find that tiny blue marble rapidly growing to fill in the blackness that had dominated the sky during the long hours drifting through space before those moments. Shiva murmured her thanks as she slipped out of the straps and gave a ghost of a smirk to the Lieutenant as the older woman smiled at her. The nighttime side of the planet was already approaching as they homed in on the planned re-entry window that Shiva had laid out, and the course that would carry them over just the right patch sky. This part of her 'rogue action' could be planned out at the very least, however the moment she left the shuttle that was when the real element of risk would begin. Shiva floated back into the tiny interior cabin of the small transport shuttle and caught herself on the floor near some of the less vital control panels. Flipping off some of the internal safety systems that would prevent the internal air-lock from opening in flight and silencing the alarms that might distract the Lieutenant unnecessarily.

  "Make sure you change all of this back and erase the data from the flight recorder before anyone down on base gets the chance to check things over." Shiva murmured up to her as she swung the bundled up gear down from the overhead storage compartment. The Lieutenant agreed with a mumble of sound now focused on the upcoming clash with the Earth's atmosphere. The six hour delay at Anslaw hadn't been about Lt. Konas's good health or about the farewells Shiva wanted to make, it had been about waiting for the slow rotation of Earth to expose certain sections of sky to any spacecraft approaching it from the direction of the moon. Their departure time, their course around the moon, and the time all of it took to cross between those two celestial bodies was entirely about the re-entry vectors that would carry the Lieutenant back to her home base and carry Shiva across the right patch of sky. As Shiva fixed the harness of her swords around her body and settled their weight against her spine she re-evaluated the entire course inside her head, calculating the minutes and seconds, altitudes and angles to insure she would be aimed right when she bid farewell to the shuttle.

  Her pack and supplies were fixed into position over top of her light weight body armor and secured into place before she slung the oxygen mask around her neck. The shuttle rattled and shook as their re-entry began, Shiva remained fixed in place unmoved by the sudden turbulence and G-forces now at work. Checking that she could pull the handles of her blades the moment they were needed she left them hanging at her sides locked in their sheaths for the time when they might be needed. With the handles above her right shoulder and resting against left buttock both of them could be pulled telekinetically or by hand in the same instant and released into the fray at a thought as magnetic clamps insured they stayed with her. She checked to insure that the mask was working and that she had oxygen for her departure. The mask was the kind used during fires, and carried just enough breathable air for about a half hour in a small canister, enough time to get away from the smoke and deadly gases. Unsuited to exposure to a vacuum it was however enough to keep her conscious long enough to get her to an altitude with breathable air.

  "I'll be in the air lock, I need to leave at 52,000 feet." Shiva called over the rumbling of the vehicle around them.

  "I'll call it." Lt. Konas yelled back. Shiva almost stopped to thank her, but decided that could be done later and if this plan did not turn out to be a very bad idea. Shiva entered the small chamber and waited with systems ready to open the outer door. At 70,000 feet the engines kicked on, giving the shuttle just a little bit of speed as the wings were lowered back into position and the vehicle took on a more stable flight, Shiva opened the doors at 68,000 feet as the Lieutenant began to call over the speakers. At 60,000 feet the shuttle settled into more stable air and began its' long approach flight towards Digel base. And finally at 52,000 feet Shiva launched herself through the open air lock door, triggering the close sequence in her wake as she was whisked quickly away by the intense wind speeds flowing around the
fast moving vehicle.

  As the shuttle disappeared into the low fog like clouds at that height and without any other frame of reference it almost seemed like she was slowing to a hover in the thin air as her speed fell and she slowly began to move towards a more vertical sort of motion. Cold damp air whispered across her exposed skin and for a few scant seconds she could almost imagine herself to be some kind of strange bird winging her way through that sky. This, of course, seemed to be an affront to gravity as all at once she became aware of the sharp sudden sense of falling as the wind picked up and the air grew thicker against her senses. Shiva reached terminal velocity long before she became aware of anything beyond the thick gray mass of the moonlit substance of the clouds that whipped up around her like a cool fog. At about 30,000 feet the clouds came to abrupt end and she emerged into clean thicker air free and became clearly aware of the onrushing darkness of the ground below. The still distant lights of the hills and forests below resolved themselves into a new perspective of towns, roadways, homes, and buildings. At that altitude it was easy to pick out the intensely lit presence of Tinner base some ten miles still to the north. Shiva let herself fall for more than 10,000 more feet before her gifts snapped into effect and all at once much of her downward momentum became horizontal as she created an invisible hang-glider of sorts that sent her speeding across the landscape on the winds blowing towards the north.

  Shifting through the air it was easy to manipulate the forms of her self created wings and hone in towards the distant lights of the massive tangle of buildings, fence lines, and the trouble that was waiting inside. According to the information that Devin and General Owen had collected over the previous days and had been carried to Anslaw by Lt. Konas, Tinner base was once an important outpost during the war, near to the front lines during some of the years of that long conflict. Which had given it a large footprint and an extensive network of tunnels beneath it. Private Gordan's untimely death had provided the direction, and images from Shiva's memories of that night had provided military license plates and truck numbers that had all lead back to Tinner base where all the vehicles had been stored and were still in storage according to base records. Even though Private Gorden's day-pass had been out of the same base and his orders signed by his commanding officer listed as part of the command staff for that facility, it hadn't been made entirely clear if that was the best place to start. The only reason to doubt that Tinner base was indeed in on the conspiracy in Shiva's way of thinking was that Tinner base was by no means the closest military facility to Vala's family vacation home. She had hoped for newer and more concrete information out of General Owen, but with so many military investigations taking place and searching for her, she could only assume that he might have been forced to lay low.

  As she winged in towards the outer perimeter of the base she could only hope that she was too small to be picked up by the radar stations operating in the distance and with the search for her the possible conspirators of Tinner base hadn't been forced into hiding. How they had managed to cover up for themselves in the face of the investigations was another matter, Shiva knew she had caused quite a bit of damage during their escape, but she supposed that anyone who thought they could get away with killing a General and his family would have to be smart enough to plan ahead or have allies that could do that for them. So much of her plan hinged on the fact that the authorities had not been given any other reason to believe anything other than Shiva had been responsible, so she really didn't want to think about all the things that could go wrong.

  As Shiva crossed the inner perimeter walls and moved in low to the massive number of warehouses that comprised much of Tinner base's surface facilities, she dispelled her means of travel and dropped in more or less silently to dent the metal roof of one such building with a strike of sound very much like an echo of far distant thunder. Almost immediately she was throwing tiny objects into the air from a pouch at her thigh, the tiny objects shot away into the darkness and began to scan the area from above, seeking out any hint of nearby activity. Shiva stared down at the softly glowing screen of her wrist computer straining to keep the objects moving at the outer edge of where she could maintain control. With tiny cores made of the same substance as the blue gemstones to extend their range as far as it could go and outer metal shells of a substances that created a tiny electrical charge when under her influence. The objects no bigger than bugs were housed with advanced optics that would transmit back video feeds to be recorded in her computer's memory showing whatever they saw as they were propelled along. Almost by chance she caught the signs of coming activity in the dark shadows of a nearby open area. Pulling her surveillance devices back in Shiva focused on moving as quickly as possible across the distance separating her from her target. Racing at speed and leaping between roof tops telekinetically Shiva's pace didn't slowly until she reached one of the buildings at the outer edge of the large area. Having spotted a dozen or so military transport trucks in the barely lit shadows filling that space, she slowed across the final rooftop and kept low as she moved into the outer fringes to perch like a gargoyle on the perimeter.

  She launched out the full compliment of tiny surveillance devices when the situation began to change below her. With the entire space now within the range she could easily handle she was able to cover the unfolding scene with sixty different camera angles. The trucks had been pulled in and arranged in formation and the sounds of marching feet approaching through the hollow space of a nearby warehouse were no less orderly. They emerged in regimented precision armed and armored to follow whatever order was given to them without question or conscious, Series 5 troops awake and combat ready. It wasn't hard to believe they were emerging from the tunnels below the base where they were kept during periods of inactivity, Shiva's best guess was that it was nearly twelve platoons of soldiers that streamed out into the dark night loading silently into trucks driven by common everyday soldiers. Undoubtedly those drivers were like Private Gorden who had been less than model officers before they had suddenly had a change of heart when assigned to Tinner base.

  The scene was watched over from one end by four figures standing at the far end of the formation of trucks. Standing in the shadows of the two smaller vehicles and seemingly cool and calm in the face of the destructive force that moved around them. Shiva concentrated a number of her devices on them and the larger of the two vehicles that waited nearby. No matter how smart she might be Shiva couldn't focus on the streaming video feeds of sixty cameras being fed into her computer, but even as she silently observed the events taking place below, she could tell that the men in the distance were men of ascending rank and undoubtedly officially part of Tinner command. She could also tell that the larger of the two vehicles was a command and control rig used to monitor and direct a large number of troops over a large area. Whatever data was gathered on those figures remained a mystery to her for the moment, but even still she knew for certain their faces and presences there were well recorded as the sounds of marching feet ended and roars of large engines replaced it as the fleet of trucks rumbled into life one by one.

  Shiva watched and waited until the trucks were pulling out into the roadway and taken out of range towards the nearest gate that would take them off of the base. Pleased that her plan had paid off so handsomely in terms of hard to deny evidence Shiva focused on the two lone figures that remained behind. The reports to Tinner base from 'off-duty officers' and 'concerned citizens' coming from a nearby hospital stating that Rei Winters, Vala Lunara, and a mysterious fugitive recently reported on the news were, of course, entirely false, but the gambit had worked and Shiva was able to dismiss the first stage of her plan out of her mind. The two men in the distance seemed in no hurry to move on, but one of them did eventually turn away to walk towards the warehouses while the other loaded into the driver's seat of the small open vehicle used for transit between the widely dispersed parts of the base. Picking the vehicle as the target most likely to
contain the higher ranking officer, Shiva was on the move as the quiet sounds of the engine whispered into life. His slow, probably self satisfied, course did not make it at all hard to keep up with him as Shiva ghosted along the rooftops like a predator stalking her prey. All but a few of her cameras had long since retreated back into their storage pouch but a few remained out in the open and in close to her target.

  With the search for evidence satisfied for the moment the search for answers now took precedence, so when their course through the shadows revealed the vast doors of a warehouse carelessly left open, like the gaping maw of some vast creature ready to swallow some passerby, the opportunity to fulfill that secondary goal seemed far too perfect to be ignored. Shiva launched out from the rooftops and down into the valley formed between the buildings and towards the concrete street like a falcon diving in for the kill. Her strike was not aimed at the officer but at the vehicle that carried him, it was almost as if he had rolled over a perfectly timed landmine as her explosive attack struck off to one side along the midpoint of the vehicle. The concrete shattered and a concussive wave struck upward and across the side of it, the open vehicle bucked like a horse confronted with a snake in it's path as it was thrown up and sideways into the open door of the warehouse launching its' unsecured passenger free to bounce across the open space just inside the entrance.

  He landed in a tangle of limbs as the fuel lines ruptured and a stray spark ignited the leaking fuel. Crippled and smoldering, the mostly controlled flames sent up a plume of thick black smoke and the scene was cast in the eerie light of the burning under carriage. Shiva entered the scene with one blade drawn, her steps slow and unconcerned as the man jerked upward only to scream as not all of his limbs moved with him. His right leg was quite clearly broken by his forced ejection from the vehicle, the bones had snapped just below the hip and the leg was left hanging lifeless by only the flesh that still connected it to his body. Angry now that she had a very real target laid out in her path Shiva could feel a cold pleasure at the scene, left unchecked by Vala's stabilizing presence.

  "Oh, god! You've got to help me! My leg.." He screamed at her when her approaching presence became a touch more clear. "Please, I need to get to the hospital!"

  "Oh.. I fear it is far too late for you to start worry about something so minor as a hospital." Shiva stated in slow unhurried words as she reached his prone form. "The only reason your life isn't already forfeit is so you can talk.." To insure her words registered in his pain addled mind, she stepped down hard on that broken limb, his scream was many times more intense than before as he writhed on the concrete at her feet. "Where were those troops going to?" She demanded as she let up the pressure.

  "Screw you fucking whore, I ain't telling you nothing!!" He spat back at her.

  "Oh.. you poor man.. does this hurt?" Shiva asked again leaning her weight down on the shattered limb. "Well.. there are other kinds of pain.." She growled feeling that same intense rage as that present during the attack beginning to stir, as she yanked his right arm upward telekinetically dragging his torso along with it, as his shoulder was very nearly dislocated by the force. "You can start by telling me who's in charge?" She whispered in dangerously sweet tones.

  "Fuck off." He growled back at her.

  "Now that isn't very nice.." Shiva whispered back to him. "You know.. we never got to play this game when we were kids, I've always wondered how it goes. This little piggy.." With a steady telekinetic pressure his fingers were forced to spread out and his pinky began to bend sideways until there was a sharp wet snap that seemed to echo as he screamed somehow louder than before. ".. went to market. This little piggy.."

  "Lt. Ashen!!" He screamed back at her.

  "Who Else!!" She screamed down at him, he clenched his jaw, shook his head, before looking away from her. "See.. now I don't believe and isn't a good thing. You.." She flipped her blade up and used the wickedly sharp tip to force his head to turn back towards her face. ".. have make me believe, otherwise I stop breaking and I start slicing." Shiva growled down to him leaving no doubt and no room for him to not see the terrible burning anger that was waiting and watching over him. There was another sickening pop and he threw back his head to scream once more. ".. stayed home." She whispered as his breath ran out. "This little piggy.."

  "Colonel Freedmont!!" He screamed gasping for breath now.

  "This little piggy.." Shiva repeated not caring enough to even let him catch his breath.

  "Admiral Shriver!!!" He regurgitated back to her, and that name seemed to open the flood gates and the names poured out for a full minute before he seemed to run dry. Shiva broke two more fingers just to be sure before cracking his skull against the concrete and left him blissfully unconscious to his well deserved pain. Her answer gathering session however had wasted no small amount of time and even as she turned away from the prone figure on the concrete another open vehicle was screeching to a halt just outside the doors. As the two MP's lunged away from it to check the scene two flying box lids dropped the men unconscious to the ground. Shiva apologized for the unrequested loan as she hopped into their vehicle and drove off.

  As she maneuvered through tangled maze of huge buildings at high speeds she quickly reviewed the limited personnel records available to her concerning Tinner base which had been delivered to her at Anslaw. Lt. Ashen was among them and had been the one to sign Private Gorden's passage off of base, Colonel Freedmont was the commandant of Tinner base. Admiral Shriver was the highest ranking person that her first victim had named, but was not among the images or names that she had known about before her arrival. However with the growing list laid out for her she decided that since she was in the neighborhood she might as well stop by for a casual conversation with at least one of them before wandered away from a place that had been so very hospitable to her thus far. As Shiva made a turn out into the wider roads that ran from the main areas of the base and towards far end of the warehouses she check her surveillance videos from earlier. Somewhat to her disappointment Lt. Ashen was the one of the faces captured in among the officers who had left with Series 5 troops, still it meant he wouldn't be around when she visited his office. Probably because he had known that there hadn't been much information to go on the General had provided her with maps of Tinner surface facilities and it wouldn't be hard to locate locate the right office with that information.

  Shiva aimed the fast moving vehicle at the security checkpoint that monitored activity moving between the warehouses as the main regions of the base, pushed the accelerator to the floor and climbed up on the seat. Driving telekinetically she watched those far distant lights of the unmanned fenced gateway as it grew a whole lot larger. When her borrowed vehicle reached 100 miles an hour her telekinetic glider snapped back into being launching her skyward and the vehicle raced away and into a rather glorious collision and explosion with the gates at the far end. She couldn't know if the guards had reported in before they moved in to investigate the scene of the crash or if another team would soon find the same thing, so hopefully the disposal of their vehicle would divert attention as she swooped in over the large and small buildings and barracks that served the base's official functions. It was easy to assume Ashen's office would be in the main administration building and that was easy to spot it in the darkness. There was a still lit room with an open window on the fifth floor and it was quickly was selected as her landing site simply because of the ease of access. But perhaps because the Universe had decided it owed her a little when Shiva climbed into empty and unoccupied space she found Lt. Ashen's name place sitting prominently on the large dignified desk that dominated much of the room. Not about to question just a little bit of luck or to deny just a hint of provenance, Shiva quickly locked the inner door to the room and quickly went to work seeking out more clues about the deeply laid conspiracies of these men.

  Shiva's small powerful computer had been designed for just these kinds of invasive situati
ons, and was quickly hacking its' way into Ashen's personal files and stripping mining it of anything that had his digital finger prints on it. While the vicious little programs were chewing their way through the raw data, Shiva rifled through the filing cabinets grabbing anything that looked important and forcing open the safe where she found files that were taken without touching them and piles of money that undoubtedly had his grubby little finger prints all over it, all of it was poured into her mostly empty back pack. When her computer beeped with a sound that was something akin to a satisfied belch, Shiva took one last look around before using the fried open digital passage ways of the office computer to locate Colonel Freedmont. To her frustration, he too was not where she could reach him, having gone off-world on some inspection tour of some kind. However, with open access to military databases on a wide open digital landscape, Shiva was able to find Admiral Shriver or at least a good place to start her search, his private 'home' was listed in his personnel files. She had truly wanted to get her hands on someone 'in-the-know' to drag back with her at the end of her 'rogue action'. With two denials already in the mix and a Sergeant who had already given up the full extent of his limited information, Shiva decided to move on just about the time the alarms crackled into life across the base. Ascending to the rooftops by tether, she was almost caught in the sweeping search lights of a vehicle hovering above the base as she moved towards cover. But since the slow sweeping light of the magnetically levitating vehicle never wavered and the source of the light continued to move ahead calmly, Shiva decided she was relatively safe for the moment.

  With Admiral Shriver's home more than a 300 miles south of Tinner base and on the fringes of the nearest large city, Shiva knew that she was going need a loan of more than just a simple open truck. That sort of vehicle would only involve the local police if it were to go racing away from the base at high speeds, and for as angry as still was, she saw no need to risk the lives of innocent law-enforcement types unnecessarily. As the hover-car loomed in overhead Shiva launched one of her tethers up into it's exposed under carriage and was carried up into the sky soon after. Using both tethers for leverage Shiva flattened her silhouette against the mostly flat underside of the vehicle as it moved slowly across the base and towards the air strips and storage hangers beyond. Below her the awoken legions of base personnel were conducting their harried search of the landscape and buildings as the source of their late night activities rode slowly over their heads. Trying to contain her frustration at the slow movements of the vehicle, Shiva rode the car's shadow all the way to the other internal security perimeter of the base before it began to turn away. Shiva waited until it was faced in the other direction before releasing her tethers and dropping back into the air to glide across the fence line and drop into the hanger storage facilities. She entered a series of interconnected buildings through a partially opened vented skylight, and dropped into the black shadows of the interior space to begin the search for something appropriate to her mood. Crossing between the buildings and rejecting most of the atmospheric craft stored below her in the shadows, it was not until the fourth hanger that she found something that peaked her interest.

  Unfortunately this was the only building where guards had been stationed, fortunately they were both standing in the light of the small entry door discussing the alarms and expressing the pleasure they weren't involved. That changed as Shiva moved in overhead to bring their skulls together in a large hollow sound before she was able to move freely through the mothballed vehicles. These were the atmospheric fighter craft of the previous war and well within the knowledge base Shiva's head still contained. Snapping one of them free of the straps holding it in place Shiva opened the cockpit and wound up the micro-fission generators that powered its' anti-gravity engines as well as some of its' more useful features. The hydrogen fuel cells that provided for the 'after-burners' were empty, but it would still be able to achieve a reasonable enough pace for the next steps of Shiva's path. She was a disappointment that all of the ammo packs, power cells for the guns, and all the heavy artillery had been removed, but as the craft lifted free of the ground and the optical camouflage proved it still worked, Shiva dismissed the minor inconvenience of not being able to destroy the Admiral's house. With the tracking system disabled, the computer fooled into thinking it was on a black-ops mission, and with the electronic countermeasures working she would be all but invisible to anything else in the sky. Shiva blew out the hanger doors into the roadway before launching the craft through the opening she was soon whisked away from Tinner base. The only way she would be seen or tracked was if a more advanced fighter craft spotted her or some had means to overcome the technology of the past century.

  Moving at tree-top level she was soon up to speed, and she was able to settle her nerves for a little bit as she set her course to her next stop and make some in-roads into evaluating the data she had already collected. While she regretted letting Colonel Freedmont's role remain mostly unknown, Admiral Shriver was perhaps a better target since his high rank and position with the Alliance space going fleet would be a new direction from the investigation Devin started. It wasn't more than hour before the high speed craft was maneuvering her into position near the huge mansion that served as a private 'home'. That massive building seen at a distance and surrounded by huge manicured gardens and grounds if anything made her believe she was dealing with the same kinds of dirty money she had found in Lt. Ashen's possession. Hovering at the edge of the walled perimeter the craft's tracking and surveillance systems easily allowed her too peer in over the borders to find a massive gathering of well dressed people involved in a party that was already in full swing and despite the late hour. With security far less advanced than a military base might claim there was little worry about slipping in and leaving the fighter craft hovering along the roof line with the control systems set to station keeping.

  Perhaps like all men for whom position and influence were their biggest aspirations, the room that the Admiral had selected for his office was the room best suited to someone who thought themselves the ruler of all that sat below them. Set on the top floor and built on a massive scale with an entire wall of windows, it was barely required an effort to swing into one of the open windows by the tether anchored above her. Another raided safe, another computer strip mined for information, another set of documents and dirty money added to her bag. Shiva only wished for one good opportunity to rip someone out of their beds to torture or terrorize for information to smooth the temper that still demanded satisfaction as she returned to the roof. But even as she contemplated seeking out another more distant target to suit those violent ambitions there was a shifting off to one side and below her that caught her eye. As if a heavenly light finally shown down on her and angels swooped into answer her prayers Shiva spotted a toad-like little man emerging out onto the oversized balcony several floors below her leading a giggling, drunk little fraction of a girl and followed by two shadowy figures who were obviously body-guards. The grand portrait that had been hung opposite of the desk in the Admiral's office looked only a vaguely like the short, stubby, dumpy little figure Shiva's eyes picked out below, but it did have the same wicked beady eyes and self important bravado of the personnel files concerning the Admiral. Hardly even hesitating Shiva's tether snapped away and she was launching over the guttered edge of the roof line and dropping as if on a bungee cord to snap down in front of the pair as they reached the railing of the balcony below.

  "Hello Admiral." Shiva growled as she landed in a crouch before lunging forward to grab his wrist and drag his fat little body and shiny little head closer. Twisting his arm up behind his back and spinning him around to face the glowing windows of the grand ball room across the concrete tiles, he grunted in pain as the possibly under-age girl he might have molested that night gave a truly piercing scream and ended all activity inside in a heartbeat. The Admiral's two guards were quick to draw their weapons and level them at Shiva.


  "Careful!!" Shiva barked back at them as one of her blades snapped out into the light, and flashed around to rest the tip against her new hostage's chin. "We wouldn't want the fat little Admiral to die in a hail of gun-fire, now would we?" The guards to their dismay soon saw only too clearly that they had no clean shot that didn't go through Shiva's oversized body shield. "Dear sweet, Admiral Shriver, do you remember me?" Shiva whispered to him a deathly cold voice. "I hope so, because when you are your little friends had General Winters executed, you decided to blame me."

  "I don't.." Shiva twisted his arm until it nearly snapped silencing him in an instant.

  "Don't bother with the lies fat man, I never did like hearing them." Shiva countered darkly as he grunted in pain. "I want you to take one long last look at all those people inside. Oh, how they adore you now, but just think in a a few short days they will all know the truth. They'll know all about how you betrayed your uniform, how you sold your soul, about how you betrayed your country, and about you MURDERED an innocent man in cold blood to increase your profit margins." Shiva growled to him in a sickly sweet voice, so very tempted to gut him right then and there. But she still had purpose for him and a mission to complete so she ripped the two of them upward, dragging the fat little man along for the ride. Whisking the two them skyward where she slammed the Admiral into the roof tiles and knocked the wind our of his fat body long enough to tie his hands behind his back. She then dumped him into the auxiliary seat of the open cock-pit and the seat-belts took great pleasure in over tightening around him almost choking his gasping breaths from his body. The canopy snapped closed and they were slammed into motion out over the grounds and away from the party.

  "I don't know who the fuck you are or what the fuck you want, but if you think you are going to scare me into talking.." Shiva was in no mood to listen to him as sudden surge of rage made it very hard to focus on setting the auto-pilot for her next destination. Fighting the urge to break the little man in half right then and there, she satisfied herself for a moment or two longer by untying the black cloth tied around her hair to send it drifting back to gag the Admiral. Once the auto-pilot was set and working, with shaking hand Shiva turned and crawled over the console that separated the seats.

  "Now listen close you dirty rotten piece of shit." Shiva growled to the gagged man in the back seat, grabbing him by the front of his uniform and ripping him forward with enough force to leave intensely painful bruises where the straps dug into his flesh. "YOU ARE GOING TO TALK!! You are going to give them every name, every contact, every secret you know, or I am going to Come for YOU!! BUT only after I find every son, daughter, mother, father, grandparent, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins out past Distant, and ANYONE YOU HAVE EVER known or had feelings for. And one by one I will break every single one of them into tiny little chunks and send them in the mail, piece by bleeding piece. NO MATTER where you run to, No Matter where you try to hide, one day you will open up your mail and find something that belong to one of them. YOU TRIED TO TAKE AWAY MY FAMILY!!" Shiva felt a lump in her throat at those words but the rage within her was far stronger than the sadness. "AND I WILL DO the exact same thing to you.. ONLY I WILL SUCEED!! And on that day.. on your very.. Last.. Day.. when you think you can take any more.. I'LL be there waiting for you with a smile on my face and then the Real Fun will begin. And I will Start by breaking.." Just to ensure that her words were understood completely, her next words were accompanied by the soft wet crackling of the bones inside of his left hand giving out under the pressure of her rage, one by one. "Every.. Bone.. In.. Your.. Body.. BECAUSE THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE STILL ALIVE IS SO YOU WILL TALK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!!!" His nod was all the answer she could want as he wet himself and started sobbing with pain and fear.